First Family

by David Baldacci

  compelling circumstantial evidence that the First Lady torched a house and killed an innocent woman to cover up her husband’s misdeeds. But you’re the reporter, so it’s your call. We won’t make you withhold it.”

  Determann looked uncomfortable. “You think Jane Cox intended Ruth Ann to die when she burned down the house?”

  “I hope she didn’t. But I guess no one other than her knows that. I do know that Willa has been through enough.”

  Determann nodded and reached out a hand to Sean. “Deal.”

  “Thanks, Marty.”

  Determann said, “It’s a great story, Sean. And I can completely understand why you both would want the truth to come out.”

  “But?” Sean said warily.

  “But it’s going to rock this country to its soul, man.”

  “Sometimes you have to, Marty. Sometimes you just have to.”

  CHAPTER 88

  WILLA SAT ACROSS from Sean, Michelle, and Gabriel with her hands in her lap and her head turned downward. They were at a house that Tuck had rented about a mile from their old one, which was up for sale. None of them wanted to go back there to live. Tuck sat next to his daughter, one arm protectively around her.

  “I’m sorry that your ma died,” Gabriel said, not looking directly at Willa. He was dressed in a new white polo shirt and blue jeans and he held a new Atlanta Falcons ball cap that Sean had bought him to replace the one he’d lost in the fire. He had one hand in his pocket, his fingers curved around the only thing of his that had survived the fire: the Lady Liberty coin that Sam Quarry had placed on his nightstand before he’d departed Atlee for good.

  “I’m really sorry about your mom too,” Willa said. “And you were very brave in that mine. I don’t think I’d be alive except for you.”

  Gabriel glanced sideways at Sean. “He pulled me out. I sure wouldn’t have made it without Mr. Sean.”

  Willa looked around the interior of her temporary home before gazing back at Gabriel. “He had a daughter. Her name was Tippi.”

  “Yep. She was real sick. Mr. Sam let me read to her.”

  “Jane Austen, he told me.”

  “Did he talk to you a lot about her?” Sean asked Willa.

  “Not a lot, but I could tell he thought about her a lot. You just sort of know.” She glanced at her father. “I tried to get away once. I almost fell off the mountain. He saved me. Mr. Sam grabbed me right before I fell.”

  Tuck fidgeted a bit. “That’s all in the past, Willa. You don’t have to think about it anymore, sweetie. It’s over.”

  She fiddled with her fingers. “I know, Dad. But part of me—” She leaned forward. “He lost his daughter, didn’t he? He lost Tippi?”

  Michelle and Sean exchanged a quick glance. “Yeah, he did,” he said. “But I believe your dad’s right. You probably shouldn’t think about it too much.”

  Tuck eyed Gabriel. It was obvious that the man was not entirely comfortable with anyone associated with Sam Quarry being in his home and around Willa, even an innocent little boy. “So he’s staying with you guys. How’s that working?” His tone clearly implied that it would not work at all.

  “It’s working just great ,” said Michelle firmly. “We’ve enrolled him in school up here for the new year. He graded into algebra even though he’s only going into seventh grade, and his foreign language skills are off the chart,” she said proudly.

  “Spanish and Native American,” added Sean.

  “Well that’s great,” Tuck said insincerely.

  “It is great,” Willa said, eying Gabriel. “You must be really smart.”

  Gabriel shrugged. “I’m okay. Got a lot to learn, and everything up here is…”

  “Different?” said Willa. “I can help with stuff like that.”

  Tuck gave a hollow laugh. “Wait a minute, honey, you’ll be plenty busy yourself. I’m sure Mr. King here can take care of the boy.”

  Michelle looked at Willa. “But thank you for asking, Willa. That was very sweet.” Now she looked directly at her dad. “And who knows, you two might become really great friends.”

  Later, Tuck drew Sean and Michelle aside while Willa showed Gabriel her room. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you did. The things that Willa told me happened. God. It’s a miracle she survived. That any of you did.”

  “You probably don’t want to hear this, but it was Sam Quarry who went back in that mine and really saved Willa. If he hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t be here.”

  Tuck’s face reddened. “Yeah, well, if the asshole hadn’t done any of this, Willa would never have been in that mine and Pam would still be here too.”

  “You’re right. Have you talked to your sister much?”

  Tuck scowled. “Not too much. Dan wanted to take Willa on a little tour with him on the campaign. But—”

  “But you thought it seemed a little too exploitative?” said Michelle.

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “The kids really need you now, Tuck. So you might want to let your partner David Hilal run the show for a while.” He paused. “Just stay away from his wife.”

  Before a surprised Tuck could say anything, Sean put a hand on the man’s shoulder and added, “And if you go anywhere near Cassandra Mallory, I’ll cut it right out of your pants, you son of a bitch.”

  Tuck chuckled briefly before realizing that Sean was deadly serious.

  As they were walking to their car later, Willa rushed outside and ran up to them. She handed them three envelopes.

  “What’s this for?” asked Michelle.

  “Thank-you letters, for all you did for me.”

  “Honey, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “My mom said you always write thank-you letters, and besides, I wanted to.”

  Gabriel held on to his envelope like it was the most precious thing he’d ever been given. “That was really nice, Willa. Thank you.”

  She looked up at them, her eyes so large they seemed to envelop her entire face. “I hate Mr. Sam for what he did to my mom.”

  Gabriel immediately looked down and stepped back.

  Michelle said, “I know, sweetie. I don’t think he meant for her to get hurt, but it was still his fault.”

  “But right before he let me go he told me that if you ever love you have to be prepared to hate too. I guess he meant if someone hurts somebody you love you’re going to hate them. It’s just natural.”

  “I guess so,” said Sean a little uneasily, unsure of where this was going.

  “I think Mr. Sam loved his daughter.”

  “I think he did too,” Michelle said softly, rubbing at her left eye.

  “He did,” said Gabriel. “No thinking about it.”

  “And because someone hurt her, he hated them.”

  “That’s probably right,” said Sean.

  “But then he said you always have to let the hate go. Otherwise it’ll just tear you up inside. And it won’t let any love back in.” She looked at Gabriel when she said this. The two children held this gaze for several long moments.

  “I think Mr. Sam was right, Willa. For both of us.” A tear plunked down on Gabriel’s new shirt, while tears slid down Willa’s cheeks.

  Michelle turned away while Sean took several quick breaths as Willa looked up at them with her wide, sad eyes.

  “So I’m not going to hate him anymore.”

  Now Michelle let out a sob and took a step back, trying to hide behind Sean, whose eyes were tearing up.

  “Okay, Willa,” said Sean in a hoarse voice. “That’s probably a good idea.”

  She gave all three a hug and then ran back inside.

  Sean, Michelle, and Gabriel just stood there for a while. Finally, Gabriel said, “She’s a good friend to have.”

  “Yes she is,” said Michelle. “Yes she is.”

  On Election Day, Dan Cox, bolstered by his heroism and the dramatic return of his beloved niece, won a second term to the White House by one of the largest margins of victory
ever seen in American presidential elections.

  Two months after the inauguration, Martin Determann, who had worked day and night on nothing other than the story of a lifetime, published a nine-page exclusive in the Washington Post. Determann had wisely piggybacked on all the years-long work that Sam Quarry had done, but had brought to it a professional investigative journalist’s eye and, more importantly, solid proofs. His story was backed up by facts and sources so meticulously cultivated and catalogued that every media outlet in the world immediately picked up on the story and did their own investigations, uncovering even more well-hidden secrets from Dan Cox’s past.

  And Determann was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

  The results of all this created a groundswell of fury across the nation against Dan and Jane Cox. So much so that on a gloomy day in April a disgraced and humbled Dan Cox addressed his fellow Americans from the Oval Office and announced that he would resign the presidency of the United States at noon the following day.

  And he did.

  CHAPTER 89

  A MONTH AFTER COX’S resignation Sean and Michelle once more visited Atlee.

  Tippi Quarry had been buried beside her mother in the graveyard of a nearby church. Based on evidence that Sean and Michelle had given as to the time of Sam Quarry’s death, his estate had passed to Ruth Ann Macon under the terms of the will that Sean had found in the basement, since Quarry’s death had preceded hers, if only by an hour or so.

  And that meant that Gabriel, as her only living descendant, inherited Sam Quarry’s property. Sean was working on the legal part of all this with a lawyer licensed in Alabama. They were planning to sell the two hundred acres to a real estate developer who was willing to pay a price high enough that Gabriel would have no problem paying for college and with quite a bit left over.

  After they finished meeting with the lawyer and representatives of the developer they were walking back to their rental car when a voice reached them.

  “Hello?”

  They turned to see a man with brown skin, shoulder-length white hair, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and a heavily wrinkled face. He was standing by where the porch to the house had once been.

  “Hello, back,” said Sean. They walked over.

  “Are you Fred?” said Michelle.

  Fred nodded as he moved toward them.

  “I’m Michelle, this is my partner, Sean.”

  They shook hands and then surveyed where the plantation had once stood.

  “Did you know Sam?” asked Fred.

  “A little. I suppose you did?”

  “Good man. Let me live on his land. Brought me smokes and the Jim Beam. I’m going to miss him. I’m going to miss them all. I guess I’m the only one left now that Gabriel isn’t living here anymore. I had two indigenous staying with me, but they moved on.”

  “Koasati?” she asked.

  “The lost people, yes. How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “I hear the property is being sold. Are you involved in that? I saw you meeting with some folks.”

  “That’s right. But Gabriel told us about you and we’ve made provision that you and your Airstream will still have a place here.”

  Fred smiled grimly. “I doubt that’ll matter.”

  “Why?”

  He coughed deeply. “Doctor says I’ve only got a few more months left. Lung thing.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sean said.

  “Don’t be. I’m old. I’m supposed to die.” He put a small hand on Michelle’s sleeve. “Would you like to come back to my trailer for a beer? It’s close by here. And my Airstream has never seen anyone as beautiful as this young lady.”

  Michelle smiled. “How can a girl refuse an offer like that?”

  They sat inside his little trailer and drank a bottle of beer each and Fred regaled them with stories about Sam and Gabriel and life at Atlee.

  “You know, I could always tell that Sam was unhappy. He tried not to show it, but he was an unhappy man.”

  Sean took a swig of beer and nodded. “I think you’re right there.”

  “Sam had great respect for our culture. Asked me lots of questions about it. Our symbols and rituals.”

  Sean sat up. “Fred, I saw a mark on Sam’s arm one time.” On the layer of dust on a rickety table in the trailer, Sean drew it out and spoke as he did so. “Four lines. A long one intersected by two perpendicular ones at each end, with a short one in the middle.”

  Fred was already nodding before he finished. “I told him about that. You see, in Native American culture that is the mark of spiritual protection. It’s not Koasati, but another tribal language. Not sure which one. Anyway, the left line means winyan , or woman. The right mark stands for wicasa , or man. The long center line stands for the wakanyeza , or innocent children.”

  “But what does it mean?” asked Sean.

  “It means it’s the responsibility of the parent to always protect the child.”

  Sean looked at Michelle. “Thanks, Fred. That really clears it up.”

  On the drive back to the airport, Michelle said, “How do people like Jane and Dan Cox go as far as they have?”

  “Because she’s strong and tough and will do whatever it takes. And he has the gift of making people want to root for him. A real people person.”

  “So that’s all it takes? God help us.”

  “But it all comes with a price, Michelle.”

  “Really?” she said skeptically.

  “Knowing that one day it could all come crashing down.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be enough of a price to pay, sorry.”

  “Trust me, his resigning the presidency was just the beginning. They’re looking at a few decades of depositions and trials. And they’ll be real lucky if both their butts don’t end up in prison.”

  “We can only hope they’re not that lucky.”

  They drove on for a few more miles before Sean reached in the backseat and slid something out of his briefcase. Michelle, who was driving, looked over at it.

  “What’s that?”

  “The file you threw in the Dumpster the night you broke into Horatio Barnes’s office.”

  “What? How?”

  “I came around the corner in time to see you chuck it. I got it out and dried it off. I haven’t read it, Michelle. I would never do that. But I thought you might want to have it.”

  She glanced down at the pile of papers. “Thanks, but I don’t need it. My dad and I already worked it out.”

  “So you already know what it says?”

  “I know enough, Sean. I know enough.”

  After they landed in D.C., Michelle drove her SUV out of the airport parking lot. Thirty minutes later they were at Michelle’s apartment. They had decided that Gabriel would stay at her place for now, but Sean would be an equal caretaker.

  Tonight, though, Gabriel was sleeping over at none other than Chuck Waters’s house. The FBI agent had six kids, three of them near Gabriel’s age, and the veteran and sour-faced federal cop had shown that he had a very soft heart for children and had taken to Gabriel immediately. The agent lived out in Manassas and over the last few months Gabriel had gotten to be good friends with all the Waters kids. Sean thought Chuck was secretly recruiting the highly intelligent Gabriel for a career in the FBI once he finished college. However, Sean had set Gabriel straight on that. “You gotta aim higher than the FBI,” he’d told Gabriel as the two of them and Michelle were having dinner one night.

  “Higher how?”

  “The Secret Service of course,” Michelle had answered.